"We are forced to express ourselves in words, and we think, most often, in space. To put it another way, language compels us to establish between our ideas the same clear and precise distinctions, and the same break in continuity, as between material objects. This assimilation is useful in practical life and necessary in most sciences. But we are right in asking whether the insuperable difficulties of certain philosophical problems do not arise from the fact that we persist in placing non-spatial phenomena next one another in space, and whether, if we did away with the vulgar illustrations round which we dispute, we should not sometimes put an end to the dispute." That is to say, it is stated to be the philosopher's duty from the outset to renounce the usual forms of analytic and synthetic thought, and to achieve a direct intuitional effort which shall put him in immediate contact with reality. Without doubt it is this question of method which demands our first attention. It is the leading question. Mr Bergson himself presents his works as "essays" which do not aim at "solving the greatest problems all at once," but seek merely "to define the method and disclose the possibility of applying it on some essential points." (Preface to "Creative Evolution".) It is also a delicate question, for it dominates all the rest, and decides whether we shall fully understand what is to follow. We must therefore pause here a moment. To direct us in this preliminary study we have an admirable "Introduction to Metaphysis", which appeared as an article in the "Metaphysical and Moral Review" (January 1903): a short but marvellously suggestive memoire, constituting the best preface to the reading of the books themselves. We may say in passing, that we should be grateful to Mr Bergson if he would have it bound in volume form, along with some other articles which are scarcely to be had at all today. II. Every philosophy, prior to taking shape in a group of co-ordinated theses, presents itself, in its initial stage, as an attitude, a frame of mind, a method. Nothing can be more important than to study this starting-point, this elementary act of direction and movement, if we wish afterwards to arrive at the precise shade of meaning of the subsequent teaching. Here is really the fountain-head of thought; it is here that the form of the future system is determined, and here that contact with reality takes effect. The last point, particularly, is vital. To return to the direct view of things beyond all figurative symbols, to descend into the inmost depths of being, to watch the throbbing life in its pure state, and listen to the secret rhythm of its inmost breath, to measure it, at least so far as measurement is possible, has always been the philosopher's ambition; and the new philosophy has not departed from this ideal. But in what light does it regard its task? That is the first point to clear up. For the problem is complex, and the goal distant.